Browsing by Author "Nyakaisiki Sheba"

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A Context-Aware m-Health Application: Towards a Design Model for Developing Rural Areas
(Delft University of Technology, 2016) Nyakaisiki Sheba
Developing nations are turning to ICT4D with the aim of supporting development goals such as improving access to healthcare services. mHealth applications are the latest innovation to emerge from the field of ICT4D, apitalizing on the widely available and affordable mobile phone. The challenge that these applications have experienced so far is sustainability. Two reasons stand out as to why these applications do not survive in a developing context; 1) a lack of understanding of the developing context, and 2) a lack of Business Model perspective in the design of mHealth applications. The task of this research was to design a model that guides ICT4D designers in designing viable mHealth applications for developing rural areas. This task was achieved using rural development theory (the livelihood approach) to understand the developing country context. Business Model tooling (STOF) was used to design and evaluate a viable mHealth application in a developing country context. On one hand, Business Model tooling like STOF were created for profit-oriented mobile applications unlike mHealth applications which are development-oriented. Social Entrepreneurship (SE) on the other hand is an emerging field that provides Business Model guidelines and principles to create viable social development projects such as mHealth. SE guidelines were therefore adopted into the design and evaluation process of STOF. A mHealth application was designed, implemented and evaluated in a rural case study in Uganda using Action Design Research and Ethnography. The research identified variables that create value and rural characteristics that threaten value generation. These variables and characteristics make up the context-aware model for the design of mHealth applications Key words: ICT4D, mHealth, STOF model, sustainability, development-oriented, Social Entrepreneurship
The STOF model and a development-oriented mobile innovation
(International Conference on Mobile Business, 2012) Nyakaisiki Sheba
Service innovations in modern economies are driven by the need to gain competitive advantage, technology advancements, market demand and organizational innovation. Uniquely, the need for social development presents opportunities for service innovations in developing nations, particularly in the delivery of social services. The thriving mobile industry in the continent provides new possibilities for development practitioners to design services that might fill gaps in social service delivery for poor communities. The challenge facing development-oriented innovations is sustainability. Sustainability is attained through continuous value generation for users and service owner(s). Proposals to developers of these innovations have therefore focused on business model application and evaluations to ascertain their ability to generate value. The complexity however of service innovation in the modern mobile industry requires a unique perspective of service design and evaluation. This paper introduces the STOF model, a business model framework for mobile service innovations in modern economies to an existing development-oriented service innovation in Uganda. The framework uses the model’s four domains (Service, Technology, Organization and Finance) and their relational Critical Success Factors (CSF), to define and evaluate the innovation. These CSF were defined from web publications on the innovation. The evaluation discovered that some of the CSF, due to poor design and strategic decisions, where poorly defined and formulated, which in turn caused an imbalance in the overall business model and therefore value generation. Keywords: STOF model, Service Innovation, Sustainability